Mahwah-based Stryker Orthopaedics faces hip implant lawsuits

More than 80 lawsuits have been filed in Bergen County against Stryker Orthopaedics by patients claiming that the Mahwah-based medical device maker sold them a defective hip implant that was later recalled from the market.

The case is on track to become one of the biggest mass-tort litigations in the county after plaintiffs’ attorneys from across the country notified a judge in Hackensack last week that hundreds of more lawsuits are on the way.

The first suit against Stryker was filed last summer by a 66-year-old Florida woman who alleged that she replaced her right hip with Stryker’s device known as Rejuvenate, based on a promise that it would last for decades.

The device failed within months, however, causing severe pain to the woman and requiring her to undergo several surgeries, the lawsuit alleged.

Stryker voluntarily recalled the product in July 2012 “due to potential risks.”

Dozens of similar lawsuits have since emerged in several states, and the New Jersey Supreme Court ordered in January for all Stryker lawsuits in the state to be heard before Judge Brian R. Martinotti in Superior Court in Hackensack.

One of the plaintiffs’ attorneys, Ellen Relkin, said she has filed 30 lawsuits against Stryker so far, and that she is representing 150 other hip-replacement patients who will be filing similar lawsuits.

The patients have all experienced muscle, nerve and bone damage as the metallic components of the device rub against each other, causing metallic elements to be released into the body and be absorbed into the blood stream and neighboring tissue, she said.

Some of those patients have already undergone revision surgeries to remove the defective product, she said.

“The rest will likely have revision surgeries down the road,” she said.

The devices were sold to these patients on the promise that they would last anywhere from 20 years to a lifetime, Relkin said. In the case of all the patients, however, the devices failed in less than two years, she said.

Cal Warriner, a Florida attorney representing the woman who filed the first lawsuit in Bergen County, said his client, Dianne Pingel, suffered severe complications from the defective hip implant and ended up in a nursing home for extended care.

Pingel, too, was told that the implant would last for decades, he said.

“These patients trusted Stryker to provide them with a safe, reliable hip implant that as promised would last for decades,” Warriner said.

Warriner has since filed several more lawsuits in Bergen County on behalf of clients from 15 different states.

Stryker spokeswoman Jeanine Guilfoyle said Thursday that the company is “reimbursing patients for testing, treatment, revision surgery and other costs relating to this voluntary recall as we continue to work with the medical community to better understand this matter.”

Guilfoyle declined to comment on the number of patients that were reimbursed or the amount of money involved.

Martinotti has issued an order instructing attorneys from both sides to discuss the possibility of mediation, and the case is scheduled for a hearing in Hackensack later in March.

Martinotti is one of three judges in the state handling “multi-county litigation” cases, or cases involving a large number of plaintiffs suing a single company.

Other mass-tort cases in Bergen County include hundreds of lawsuits filed against DePuy Orthopaedics, a subsidiary of New Brunswick-based Johnson & Johnson.

The plaintiffs in that case allege that the company sold them a metallic hip part that caused complications similar to those alleged in the Stryker case. That product, known as the ASR, was also voluntarily recalled by the company.

The six mass-tort cases being heard before Martinotti involve more than 2,500 plaintiffs and potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements or verdicts.